Gone Hunting

Anyone remember waaaay back when this used to be a blog about Druids andHunters? For a long time my hunter (whose name was also Jasyla because I’m creative like that) was my second main. I spent a number of years raiding with two guilds and my Hunter was my Horde main for tiers 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10 (spent a couple tiers as a resto shaman before getting mad at class changes and going back to the hunter). Then, at the end of Wrath they took my mana bar away and poor Jasyla2.0 was abandoned and pretty much forgotten about.

A couple months ago I decided I wanted to get to max level with all professions so I could get the Master of All achievement. Since my hunter was my only LW/Skinner, I began playing her every once in a while. Mostly just killing and skinning dragons whenever I had nothing better to do. Then came the character services sale. Since hunter!Jas was just sitting in some random guild I didn’t know anyone in, and most of my other characters are Alliance on Eldre’thalas, I decided to transfer her over. Then came the hard part. I stared at the character screen for so long. What race do I want to be? Female or male? And what will my name be? I hummed and hawed, I asked Twitter for their opinions. Finally, after way too long, Jasyla the Blood Elf became Jasy the Draenei (just can’t resist those booberific space goats).

As I leveled my way through Pandaria, I remembered how much I love my hunter. I love my old pets – Kitty the wolf, Toby the tiger, Guybrush the monkey and Trouser the snake. I love traps and kiting. I love Deterrence and Disengage. Finding new pets to tame was fun, though almost everything I wanted for a pet was couldn’t be tamed – no elder pythons, beavers or giraffes for me. But I did find some new pets I liked. I got a glowbutt bug and a t-rex (Don’t move! They can’t see you if you don’t move!).

I think I’ve spent more time playing WoW in the last week and a half than I usually do in a month. I quickly leveled to 90. The day I hit 90 I did something like 12 random dungeons, in which I had the worst loot luck possible. That first day only 2 usable pieces of loot dropped for me. So I bought Justice gear. I did some random BGs and bought PVP gear. My friends made me crafted gear (or loaned it to me so I could carry it around and cheat my ilvl), I bought gear from the AH. Finally I made my way up to 470 so I could queue for MSV. I did all 6 bosses, used coin rolls on every one of them and got… absolutely nothing. Clearly the gearing process was not going to be easy. My hunter has always had a bit of a curse when it comes to getting loot and it looked like that was going to continue.

This weekend I did LFR for HoF and Terrace (with an awesome guildy who queues on his tank or healer – whichever makes it faster, whenever I need someone for LFR or dungeons). Finally my luck started turning around, to a ridiculous degree. I got 3 pieces of tier and some OS pieces. When it came time to fight Lei Shi, she gave me a trinket and a gun. I was getting gear from drops and coins (a few times I got the same piece twice). After all these drops I must be able to queue for ToT now, right? ilvl 478. /sigh. So it was back to PVP and dungeons. Purchased more honor gear, upgraded my gun (even though I really wanted to save my Valor so I could buy the 522 neck asap). Finally I was there – 480! I did the first part of ToT and got another new helmet (because I like having to buy 3 meta gems in 3 days), then I got distracted by other things and have yet to do the rest of the instance.

So that’s what I’ve been up to this week. For the first time in a long time I have a somewhat up-to-date alt that I enjoy playing. I may even go to my guild’s alt run sometimes. Now I just need to re-familiarize myself with SV so I’m comfortably bi-spectual and get all my gems and reforging done right, now that my gear is somewhat less likely to be so easily replaced.

I’m really liking how hunters play right now. I remember how I used to loathe BM in BC (steady shot, steady shot, steady shot) and went Marks or SV for raids out of spite (and because I could still beat the other hunters even in a sub-optimal spec). Now BM is a lot of fun. All the cooldowns! I need to tweak my UI to make it more dps-friendly and find some good hunter addons (suggestions anyone?)

9 responses to “Gone Hunting”

I’m about to dust off my hunter soon. She’s the last alt that needs to hit 90 and I’ve been bored of the others lately. And just so you know, there is a Jasyla (the spirit owl) on my hunter.. it just seemed fitting.

I have to admit, Trouser the Snake had me laughing out loud. You naughty hunter! In my opinion, having a fully functional, non-healing alt (in my case an ele shammy who I refuse to heal on) helps keep the healing burn out at bay. Live it up on that hunter and just once for fun go BM just so you can cast Stampede and giggle like a schoolgirl. =DBells recently posted..Rolling With the Punches

It is nice to do something other than heal. I notice that I’m much more focused when I dps. I’m pretty relaxed when I heal and can do things like type in gchat or talk in mumble but I have very singular concentration when I’m pushing dps buttons.

My hunter is halfway through 86 right now and I’m basically learning how to play him. I’m using Ovale as an ability/rotation suggestion addon. It — or at least the script I’m using — isn”t perfect but it is helping me get used to the basics. And I need help with the basics! When I picked him back up, it seems a third of the abilities on his bars, through macros, didn’t exist anymore. No wonder I was so confused!

What isn’t perfect about Ovale? The script I’m using doesn’t suggest to ever use flock of crows or focus fire and maybe one other cooldown. When I realized this and worked them into my rotation, my (level 86 on a target dummy) DPS went from 20 to 30k. I’m not going to worry about this much until I hit 90, then I can modify the script as needed.

I used Ovale before when I was trying to learn how to do feral dps. I just downloaded JS Hunter Bar. It’s pretty good, though it seems to be missing a couple abilities as well – my pet’s Rabid and Focus Fire.

Not sure how I ended here but read the story and felt exactly the same. Hated my hunter for a long time and totally Shammied my way through Cata and Pandaria. The hunter just didn’t do it anymore. Finally picked hunter up after my Shammie hit ilvl 500 and I got bored on the dead server Terokkar (no way to get into normal raiding without a decent guild)
Took me long enough to admit that BM didnt do it anymore, just too much spells and CD’s to keep track of. SV gave me 30% dps increase when leveling the ilvl… Hope someone will post a proper spell addon like Elementarist for shaman is.
FYI – Took my troll hunter to Draenor when the guild moved, ah bliss people talking!, and draeinei – booberella – shaman to Silvermoon when the sale hit.